An inquest heard how a mother put her healthy toddler to bed one night and found him dead the next morning.

Stephanie Ballantine from Halesowen, West Midlands, said yesterday that her son had been behaving 'normally' the night before his tragic death on December 28 in the Spanish holiday resort of Playa de las Americas.

Alfie Brown died of natural causes while on a family holiday in Tenerife last year.

Stephanie Ballantine said her son's tragic death was 'sudden'. She described putting him to bed one evening only to find him dead the following morning.

His mother, Miss Ballantine, 19, said: 'It was completely sudden. I put him to bed the night before and found him the next morning.'

She told the inquest at Smethwick Council House that Alfie, aged just 14 months when he died, had been playing by the pool 'all day'.

Miss Ballantine, who is expecting another child, described Alfie's development as 'completely normal', saying that he had passed medical check-ups 'with flying colours.'

Stephanie Ballantine (right) said son Alfie (right) had been behaving normally the day before his death on December 28

She was joined yesterday by her parents, who were also on the holiday, and Alfie's father Matthew Brown.

A consultant perinatal pathologist at Birmingham Women's Hospital carried out a post mortem into Alfie's death on January 10.